Too crowded?? Your own infinity warp/amalgamations/com of characters and stories

[GodfatherIV]

Ok so considering how Hickman is rebooting and revitalizing the Xmen hopefully streamlining everything.....

I thought it might be interesting to get peoples ideas on trimming down the numbers and warping or amalgamating some characters powers and origins etc. This was kind of started in the unpopular and controversial opinions thread but I felt like this could be something of its own so we dont derail the other one.

There some good ideas out there especially from CRaymond and others. So this thread is for posting about characters that should not exist or who's stories or powersets could be better off just roled in to another characters. Hell we can even alter or change existing characters powersets and abilities altogether.

So for your vision of the Xmen....
what characters would you warp or amalgamate or combine? What characters woyld you change? Who wouldnt exist anymore or would have been killed off? What stories would be changed and how? Feel free to kind of run wild with it lol

[CRaymond]

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I really like the idea of Kevin MacTaggert, Proteus & David Haller, Legion being the same person. Not only do they have similar powers and similar motivations, but they present the exact same conflict for the team to deal with: bad parenting. The Gabrielle Haller backstory was largely unnecessary, and Moira's history with Xavier would be far more interesting if SHE was the mother of his bad seed. Doubly so if she was the middle of a Moira-Xavier-Magneto love triangle. Mostly, I want Moira's intelligence and perspective to be far more important to counterpoint Xavier's optimism. Combining David and Kevin makes that connection central to Xavier's character.

[CRaymond]

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Another one that's seemingly obvious is combining Mikhail Rasputin & Akady Rossovich, Omega Red. Both were introduced in the same relative era of X-Men stories as "lost Russian operatives". One has a slight Wolverine origin overlap, and the other is the older brother of Colossus and Magik. While Omega Red has an impressively unique silhouette and powers, Mikhail has always been portrayed as generic deus ex machina. Making Mikhail Rasputin the death-powered Omega Red gives the X-Men a nuanced responsibility to dealing with him as an ongoing threat.

[CRaymond]

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One that's slightly more obscure is merging the Morlock leader Callisto & Joanna Cargill, Frenzy. Both women are similarly given superpowered physiques, both are leaders of outsider/criminal organizations of mutants, both wander in and out of adversarial and intimate relationships with the central X-Men cast. With Frenzy as the deposed leader of the Morlocks, it suggests the Alliance of Evil was comprised of similarly exiled Morlocks, and makes sense that she would turn to Magneto's Acolytes in desperation.

[CRaymond]

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There's no reason that Belasco & Azazel couldn't have been the same. While there are many who prefer Claremont's original Destiny + Mystique origin for Nightcrawler, I'm a fan of the Limbo lineage, even though it's fraught with the terrible Draco storyline. If Belasco was a Kamar Taj sorceror, trapped in the Limbo hellscape every 25 years, he may have absconded with Raven Darkholme in one of his intervals... a mutant retelling of Hades & Pesephone. When the Kamar Taj sorcerors manage to rescue Mystique, she's found pregnant. When the baby is born, its blue demonic features are evidence of his conception in Limbo, and the baby is traded to a Romani sorceress for a bundle of stones... a mutant retelling of Kronos & Rhea. Margali Szardos raises Kurt Wagner until he kills her son in puberty, and finds sanctuary in a cathedral.

[CRaymond]

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Karma X'ian Kwa Nanh
Instead of being possessed by the Shadow King, Shan is romanced by Lady Deathstrike, and persuaded to become a "good" Hand vigilante. A brain injury happens at the same time as the Siege drops Betsy in Madripoor --not Hong Kong. Instead of Spiral, the Hand mystics exploit Betsy's telepathy and her Mojoworld connection to Leong and Nga's latent mutant powers to repair Shan's body and mind. Something goes wrong when they touch Karma's own "possession" powers, and the women swap bodies.

[CRaymond]

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Talisman Danielle Twoyoungman
Estranged from her father but not from the Blackfoot, fierce Danielle Twoyoungman exhibits the psychic power to draw bridge spirits through the astral plane. Gods and monsters are pulled from their adjacent realms to the living world. Somewhere between mutant and magic, Shaman advises her foster parents to send her to Charles Xavier, who has experience teaching psychic girls who can access godlike entities... like Hela of Asgard.

[CRaymond]

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Wolfsbane Taryn Cassidy
Daughter of the X-Man Banshee, Taryn was raised in the foster system of Scotland after her mother died. Years of court battles between the state and her only living relative, the villain Tom Cassidy, left her emotionally scarred with an addictive personality. Eventually discovered by Xavier, Taryn's supernatural lycanthropy was a power wholly unlike her father's, leading her to question who she is and where she truly belongs.

[GodfatherIV]

Nice... I like those especially Legion and Proteus. Curious as to how their powers would combine. Is it Legion possessing bodies like Proteus, burning them out and absorbing their psyche and abilities? Either way it makes sense.

Love the Omega Red/Mikhail Rasputin combo. It makes the most sense...probably my favorite.

Frenzy and Callisto is interesting and makes the history that much more rich.

The last one?.... is that Rahne Sinclair and Teresa Cassidy now being combined and called Taryn. Not a bad idea at all if so. Especially if maybe her wolf's howl has some of the capabilities that Siryn showed inherited from her father but a little more honed. Also increases the bond between Sean and Moira. Definitely digging this one if thats where its going

[GodfatherIV]

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Talisman Danielle Twoyoungman
Estranged from her father but not from the Blackfoot, fierce Danielle Twoyoungman exhibits the psychic power to draw bridge spirits through the astral plane. Gods and monsters are pulled from their adjacent realms to the living world. Somewhere between mutant and magic, Shaman advises her foster parents to send her to Charles Xavier, who has experience teaching psychic girls who can access godlike entities... like Hela of Asgard.

So this is interesting. I like it but one question. Considering all the abilities that Talisman and Dani would have...what would you do with Magik? Is she still needed? Maybe she can have gravitational powers or have like a ghost phasing thing like Kitty or even like Darkstar with darkforce abilities?

[CRaymond]

I’d ditch both Hellion & QQ. Quite was Morrison retelling the DPS, and there was no point in bringing him back, except that in itself is the joke. In any case, we don’t need psychic jerks, unless you want to add some sass to Chamber.

I’m always going to lean toward the minority mutant with the redundant powers. Didn’t Elixir die? Shoulda stayed dead.

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I’m STILL reeling from the idea of making Storm Magneto’s daughter. Magneto’s Jewishness would be tricky and controversial to update —much less alter completely. Storm’s African heritage is so similarly important that to actually build the bridge —someone’s going to lose something.

[Harpsikord]

[snip]

Go off I guess, Bot.

Anyway!

I've been sitting on this concept and thinking about it a lot and the one that I keep coming back to is: Rachel Grey-Summers and Hope Summers.

I'm a huge fan of both of these characters when they're written properly but it's been a huge thing since who knows when about how there are way too many Jean Grey derivative characters, with Rachel being the original and Hope being the most recent of them. Now, I wouldn't say to inherently get rid of either them, the stories that were told about these characters would still exist... to a point. So, you're wondering - Harpiskord, how would you swing this one? Well. What I would do is permanently cement the idea that Rachel is the "child" of Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and the Phoenix Force. Jean Grey died a few years prior to Messiah Complex, and that's also around the time that Rachel came back and sort of lost her purpose - and there's always been the question of her true origin, and in Endsong it was defined that the Phoenix Force had an affinity for Scott just like Jean did. So, when the Phoenix reacts to M-Day and the Decimation and creates it's ideal mutant child, with input from Jean in the White Hot Room... It's Rachel. Cable would know that it is his sister when he meets her and he would take her into the future to raise her like the Askani Mother took care of him when he was growing up, and he'd make sure that she had the right name, etc, etc, etc. Upon coming into contact with the teenage Rachel of 616 after Second Coming and getting home from Space, the two versions of the character (DoFP Rachel and 616 Rachel) would merge, thus giving Rachel all of the memories of both Days of Future Past and the memories that 616 Rachel would have from being raised by Cable. (Effectively, Hope's memories.)

This also gives Rachel the added benefit of relevancy. Rachel has had an issue with being relevant since she returned from space as well as a lack of edge and personality, and making her the mutant messiah as well as having her raised on the run from Bishop in multiple different timelines resolves that. If the two Rachel's meet after Second Coming and during Avengers vs X-Men it also removes the redundancy of people being worried about Hope getting the Phoenix while an established host is already there because Rachel is the established host and it would end up being defined as Wolverine (and the other Avengers) just being worried over nothing. Rachel could be concerned about getting the Phoenix back because the last time the full force was on Earth, her mother died, etc, etc, etc or she could just be running for her life in an effort to survive long enough for the Phoenix to come and for her to take it over.

She'd maintain the powers that she normally had, the tp/tk and etc, but they may manifest differently.

[CRaymond]

I’m going to have to chew on that one Harp. You know I care about Rachel, but I always think “messiahs” are dangerous and ultimately bad ideas. Still I’m into it I just need time to get on your page.

[Harpsikord]

I’m going to have to chew on that one Harp. You know I care about Rachel, but I always think “messiahs” are dangerous and ultimately bad ideas. Still I’m into it I just need time to get on your page.

Well, it's less messiah and more "messiah." I struggle to call Hope an actual Mutant Messiah now, it's only in context of her reactivating the X-Gene. And in context of this Hope/Rachel amalgamation, the messianic traits would exclusively be that she ends up hosting the Phoenix and working with Wanda to restore the X-Gene... which she'd do through some power-amplifying Phoenix mumbo jumbo as opposed to Hope's power mimicry.

[CRaymond]

Yeah I get that. You’re peppering Rachel with the best Hope bits, which is certainly the best way to go. Using Rachel as a significant player in AvX would’ve been interesting, I just can’t with gun-toting surly kids y’know?

And then all the trash with Cable and Bishop. I don’t know if I’ll have energy to rehab that. I want to excise most of the last two decades. I’m so old.